Order a copy of the new WILPF-Global Network DVD on A Space 4 Peacefrom Global Network for $15.00. We did not copy right it so you can freely reproduce it at low cost for use in classrooms, community forums, libraries and on cable television. We plan soon to have a discussion and resource guide to accompany the DVD. WILPF Disarm Leadership Team member MacGregor Eddy was the producer and Dan Reilly did the camera work and editing.

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For the fifth year WILPF is co-sponsoring Keep Space for Peace Week with Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

During this election year we hope every WILPF Branch will plan at least one event, be it ambitious or very simple, that promotes demilitarizing the heavens. This page includes many resources to help you plan events.

II. Go to WILPF Reaching Critical Will for materials on space law, the alternative to war in, from and through space. Other nations of the world are ready to negotiate treaties banning weapons in space and Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) . Find fact sheets, hand outs, and extensive information on the UN treaty process and U.S. recalcitrance that you can share with your Congressional delgation, candidates, opinion leaders and your own community.

We are pleased to co-sponsor Keep Space for Peace Week with Global Network. Bruce Gagnon and Mary Beth Sullivan are indefatigable in their leadership role, and will not let any of us forget either the dangers of space militarization or the urgent need for conversion to a peace economy. Watch ten minute video interview of Bruce Gagnon on U.S. space dominance program posted October 8, 2008.

IV. Europe for Peace is supporting the Nonviolent resistance of people in the Czech Republic to the installation of a " missile defense" radar base. Explore the web sites, watch a video of European protests against U.S. space militarization and sign the petition is support of the Czech peoples's oppositon to a U.S. missile defense radar base on their territory.

V.UN World Space Week, established by the General Assembly to promote the peaceful uses of space for all humankind, occurs from October 4 to October 10 each year. Unfortunately we find the UN week, with aerospace corporations as co-sponsors, emphasizes exciting young people -- the potential future aerospace workforce -- about space exploration with little attention to the need to preserve space for peace. We submit our KS4P reports to the annual UN World Space Week publication to make it clear that space militarization -- from which aerospace corporations draw their largest profits -- and peaceful uses are incompatible, and that we must develop space law as the alternative to space warfare. Download the 2007 UN report with your entries included.

Keep Space for Peace Week is traditionally a time to press for conversion or dismantlement of corporations profiteering on space militarization, and of military bases involved in "missile defense" and Space Command programs. It is also a time when we educate on the dangers of weapons in space now promoted by the Pentagon, the Administration and aerospace corporations.

Go to the second attachment at the end of this web page, entitled KS4P flyer 2007, for an excellent flyer on the military industrial complex done by Ellen Schwartz of Sacramento Branch. You can print it out and cut and paste, adapting it with text and graphics to fit your own community.

Explore the web sites of major corporations in your area promoting and profiting wildly from space militarization . These "star wars" profiteers include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman/TRW, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Alliant. The most diversified of these giant corporations, Bechtel, builds much of the infrastructure on the Space Command bases. If none of these corporations have facilities in your area you can search for subcontractors using Google local.

On Saturday, October 11 WILPF and Global Network are once again co-sponsoring the annual Keep Space for Peace vigil at Vandenberg AFB near Lompoc, California. Contact WILPF memberMacGregor Eddy for more information.

WILPF members are invited to participate in KS4P events in Colorado at Peterson, Schreiver and Buckley Air Force Bases. Contact Citizens for Peace in Space for information. Other Star Wars bases in states with WILPF members or Branches include: Cheyenne Mountain AFB, CO, Cape Canaveral, Florida, PAVE PAWS radars at Cape Cod Air Force Station (AFS), MA; Beale (AFB), CA, Eldorado AFS, TX, and Robins AFB, GA. Member-at-large might like to join demonstraters at Kirtland AFB (contact Stop the War Machine).

Commitment to non-violence: For those participating in citizens inspections or non-violent direct action at military bases or space industry corporations, or for any reason anticipating tension at a vigil or demonstration, WILPFer Linda Richards has prepared a non-violent training guide that can be adapted for your own needs. Go to www.atomicvigil.netand click on "Star Wars Satyagraha."

B. Emphasize the Positive: Support United Nations Space Treaties

Emphasize the positive: We must remember, as we educate our communities on U.S. aggressive and hubristic space militarization programs, that we do not want to spread hopelessness and despair. There is hope in the gradual strengthening of international space law. WILPF Reaching Critical Will has extensive information on UN space treaties and Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space.

International space law, accompanied by monitoring, inspection and utilization of national and international court systems, is necessary if we are to save space for peace. WILPF believes we also need international treaties regulating exploitation of solar system resources by governments or private corporations, to ensure maximum benefits to the environment and for all humankind .Unfortunately the U.S. has obstructed treaty negotiations at the United Nations on space issues, and especially since 2001. The world's best hope lies in changing U.S. space militarization policies, and in the U.S. WILPF Section we have a great deal of work to do. We welcome those who share our concerns to join the WILPF DISARM! Issue Committee.

Open the third attachment at the end of this web page to get a text that can be reformatted into a two sided flieron PAROS. You may add text and graphics of your own but avoid changing the wording in the RCW document and keep the source acknowledgement. The first attachment is a reformatting of the text with a small graphic already done by Lynda Williams of Marin County.

C.Glean ideas from reports of last year's events

Global Network Space newsletter for winter 2007 can be accessed for ideas,and resources. It includes lots of photos and several articles on 2007 Keep Space for Peace Week. Carol Urner's article (#9) gives an over view of the week's activities, but there is a lot more there and it makes an exciting read.

Read 2006 reports on KS4P week events. These are the reports as submitted to the UN World Space Week publication for 2006. Everything is on line except the wonderful oversize document and maps of the U.S. space program provided by Colorado Citizens for Peace. Look here for ideas for your own 2008 report. Photos and graphics are encouraged! Read background resources for 2007 KS4P week to prepare yourself for further action to stop space militarizaton during the year ahead.

Read 2007 reports on Keep Space for Peace. These will be all reports already posted to the Global Network site and will include those in which WILPF was involved. Scroll down below the photo and introduction to where you see Reports and click on that. Or, alternatively, scroll down to the very bottom of the section and you will find the reports accessible from there.

Resources and ideas are also available from the strategy session of the annual Global Network conference in Darmstadt in March 2007. Eight WILPF members from Britain, Norway, Germany and the US attended, including Linda Richards and Carol Urner from the US WILPF DISARM committee and Mary Beth Sullivan from Global Network. Read the report of Bruce Gagnon on the Darmstadt conference. Scroll down for photos of the meetings and demonstrations. The WILPF report is also available. Read a Stars and Stripes account of the GN demonstration at US August-Euler Air field in Darmstadt, including interviews of WILPF members Linda Richards and Helen John, British WILPF activist. The base has since been closed down by the U.S. air force, and we like to think we can take some credit for that!

Additional resources are available in the report of the WILPF side event on War in Space or Life on Earth: the Choice is Ours, presented at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, May 3, 2007. Norwegian WILPF sponsored the event, Edel Haven Beukes moderated and Bruce Gagnon and Carol Urner presented.

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II. Go to WILPF Reaching Critical Will for materials on the alternative of space law. We need cooperation and negotiation to ensure the peaceful uses of space for all humankind. In the interests of all we must Prevent an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) and demilitarize the heavens. Download the one page PAROS fact sheet to use as a hand out. More detailed fact sheets are available on Space and the United Nations , and on PAROS. A fourth fact sheet on the draft treaty Preventing the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space submitted by China and Russia addresses one of the chief concerns of WILPF and Global Network. Serious negotiations around this draft could help prevent dangerous space weaponization. Any (or all) of these fact sheets could be used along with speakers or videos for further education and discussion. They could also be used in themselves for study and discussion by WILPF members and their friends.

These resources are all on the PAROS Working Group page. Any WILPF member with a serious long-term interest in researching and working for space demilitarization is welcome to join this small but active group.

WILPF's Reaching Critical Will also has an excellent web page on Outer Space which could be used as the basis for research and a longer term study group. It includes links to exhaustive documentation on space militarization, weaponization, space technology, space debris, existing space treaties, negotiation of additional treaties, uses of space, civil society input, and a list of videos and DVDs on space militarization and nuclear weapons. A long list of websites of kindred organizations working for abolition of nuclear weapons is also here.

You will note that major powers, especially those with nuclear weapons, accept missile defense and space militarization as allowable for defensive purposes. It is a tragic fact, however, that some nations -- and especially the United States -- are already using their considerable military space assets to wage wars of aggression. WILPF continues to work for the frequently affirmed United Nations goal of general and complete disarmament under strict international control on land, sea, in the air and in outer space.It is time to put an end to war.

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III. Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space has a long list of speakers, entertainers and DVDs available for Branch programs. Your own events will be listed here so email the descriptions, time and place to globalnet@mindspring.com. At least five WILPF members are among the speakers available (Jackie Cabasso, MacGregor Eddy, Regina Hagen, Mary Beth Sullivan and Carol Urner) along with lots of of other very able and stimulating people from around the country (and the world). The entertainers can also speak to the topic as well as make you laugh, cry and want to act to save us from this madness.

Go to the home page left hand side column to find the list of videos and DVDs, any of which an be used as centerpiece for a program and discussion.

And take time to explore the rest of the Global Network web site which is filled with information (much of it indeed scary) on Pentagon plans for Space domination and a century of war for control of earth and the solar system. You will also find more hopeful entries on economic conversion, demilitarizaton and links to WILPF material on aerospace war profiteers and Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space. Read the autumn newsletter, including Alice Slater's article on how the U.S.is blocking negotiation treaties that would ban space weapons and Prevent an Arms Race in Outer Space. You will find other articles of interest as well.

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IV. Europe for Peaceis supporting the nonviolent resistance of people in the Czech Republic to the installation of a " missile defense" radar base. Sign the on-line petition, but also explore the Czech nonviolence web site for inspiration, information and ideas. Watch videos revealing widespread European resistance to U.S. establishment of Star Wars bases on European soil. Most videos are no more than ten minutes in length, and any of them could be shown to a discussion group using a laptop computer and a DVD projector. Read about the fast to stop the controversial U.S.-Czech "missile defense" radar installation in which some of us in WILPF joined -- most for a single day on June 22 and others for longer periods.

The group in Czechoslovakia that has led this growing movement belongs to a wider humanist network, Europe for Peace, which this year is co-sponsoring Keep Space for Peace Week with Global Network and WILPF. This network works for a nuclear free future as well as for an end to space militarization. So let's get acquainted with these newest of our European allies!

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V. UN World Space Weekwas established by the General Assembly to promote the peaceful uses of space for all humankind. The week occurs from October 4 to October 10 each year. It is sponsored by the two UN agencies responsible for monitoring existing space law, but the logistics are handled by an NGO supported by aerospace corporations like Lockheed Martin, ATK,andHamilton Sundstrand(United Technologies). These corporations are admittedly using the week to develop a future work force from among the young. However, although they are involved in peaceful uses, they are unfortuntely also promoting and profiteering from missile defense and space militarization.

In WILPF we are convinced that space militarization is dangerously incompatible with peaceful uses and also with the existence of life on earth. One of the the best examples of the hubris and hunger for profit on the part of elements in both the military and the aerospace industry is Vision 2020, a 1998 publication of the Space Command. In 2001 full spectrum military domination of space, land, sea and air with control of both the solar system and earth below became official U.S. policy.

From its inception Keep Space for Peace Week sought to put forward a very different vision. We held our events during the same week as the UN event, but called for bans on weapons and nuclear power in space, for an end to missile defense installations, and for space demilitarization. In 2006 we decided, at the Global Network international conference in Vancouver, Canada, to seek dialog with UNOOSA, UNCOPUOS and WSWA. We sent our2006 reports (many from WILPF Branches in the U.S. and abroad) to all three organizations. Brief excerpts were included in the 2006 World Space Week annual report (3.5 megabytes -- don't try it with slow download!). In 2007 we sent over fifty reports with photos. One or two paragraph summaries of each appear in the 2007 World Space Week annual report (5 megabytes!).Although most are not as detailed or dramatic as the original full reports, even the titles make the message clear: Keeping Space for Peace at Vandenberg Airforce Base, Peace on Earth, -- Not War in Space, Nonviolent Witness at Strat Com Conference, Reminding High School students of the need for Critical Thinking in matters of war and peace, Space for the Benefit of All -- not pre-emptive wars. In India over half of the reports were from Global Network, and in the UK and the USA around a fourth were from Keep Space for Peace Week events.

Over 20 reports with WILPF members sponsoring or involved were included, coming from the U.S., Great Britain, Switzerland, Australia and Norway. Let's increase that number this year.

We appreciate that the President of WSWA and the UN organizatons have accepted our entries, even though UNOOSA and UNCOPUOS say their mandate includes only peaceful uses of outer space and does not extend to matters of militarization. We submit our entries to open dialogue and make it clear that space militarizaton and peaceful uses are incompatible. Nations and NGOs must work together to develop space law as the alternative to space warfare.